It’s not easy to sack Tom Brady.
The quarterback took 21 in the regular season when leading the Buccaneers to an 11-5 record. In the postseason, Washington got to him three times in the wild-card round. But he was only brought down one time in each of the games against the New Orleans and Green Bay.
Brady has never been known for his speed, and that’s not going to change at age 43. But according to Chiefs defensive end Frank Clark, Brady’s pocket presence and shoulder movement make him as elusive as any quarterback in the league.
“He’s got these shoulders — have you ever seen Tom Brady’s shoulders when he’s in that pocket?” Clark said Wednesday. “His shoulders are crazy sometimes. Like, I don’t know. Tom Brady’s, what, 43? I ain’t got nothing against a 43-year-old age range, [people] around that age. But man, to be able to move his shoulders like that, playing in the league for 20, 30-some years — for him to be able to move his shoulders like that still is quite amazing.
“Me and Chris Jones talk about it all the time. I think Chris missed a sack because he shimmied his shoulders some kind of way. Chris completely missed him, and he was like, ‘Man, I don’t know how I missed Tom Brady.’ It’s noting against him, but he’s not an escape artist. But it’s like — honestly sometimes he’s just as good as Deshaun Watson. I think Deshaun Watson is the best. And you watch Tom Brady in that pocket man and sometimes you can’t tell the difference. You can’t.”
Clark has sacked Brady in two of the three contests he’s played against the quarterback — the exception being November’s matchup between Tampa Bay and Kansas City. Clark knows he’ll have to be at the top of his game to bring Brady down on Sunday.
“You’ve got to be a dog, for real,” Clark said. “Everything you do, you’ve just got to go out there and do it to the best of your ability because at the end of the day, Tom Brady knows what time it is. It’s the Super Bowl. It’s the reason why he’s the GOAT. It’s the reason why he’s won more of these things than anybody else, because he understands the magnitude of this game.”